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Windows 10 update enabled DirectX 12
Interesting, if you have been playing around with the preview build of Windows 10, then you will have noticed that after you updated it to the latest build it now has DirectX 12 support. If you look at the screenshot below, you can see that it is enabled in the OS itself.
Now unfortunately there are no further drivers let alone software to test DX12. You will need a DX12 GPU (for all DX12 features), a DX12 Driver and then a game or benchmark that has DX12 support.
DX12 will add a lot of new features, but the most important one is significantly reducing overhead, much like Mantle making it dar more CPU friendly. BTW to make it clear, the biggest imporvement is reducing CPU overhead, you will need DX12 for that, but a DX12 GPU for that is not needed. The codebase simply is different and you will reap the benefits here even with a DX11 GPU.
If you like to give the Windows 10 preview build a try:
Microsoft has released another Windows 10 build for the Windows Insider program and this release brings with it a plethora of new features including Cortana, Continuum and a bunch more. To upgrade to the new build, follow the steps with your install of Windows 10 9879 or you can download the ISOs using the links at the bottom of this post.
- Click on the start menu and in the search box type 'Windows Update'
- Chose 'Windows Update Settings'
- In the left panel click 'Preview Builds'
- Click on the 'Check' now.
- Download the new build
After you do this, if there are bits to download for your machine, the process will start and then the waiting game begins.
Download: Windows 10 9926 English: x86 | x64
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DamnedLife
Senior Member
Posts: 101
Joined: 2014-06-20
Senior Member
Posts: 101
Joined: 2014-06-20
#5005188 Posted on: 02/01/2015 02:34 AM
Turns out Conservative Raster can be used with 2nd gen maxwell even with Direct3D11 via nvapi=>hw support even without directx 12.
https://developer.nvidia.com/content/dont-be-conservative-conservative-rasterization
What is it?
Conservative raster is a cool new feature that came along with NVIDIA’s new Maxwell architecture, which means it is accessible today on GTX980/GTX970 boards. It allows rasterization to generate fragments for every pixel touched by a primitive. This post shows how to enable the feature, and highlights a couple of example use cases: ray traced shadows and voxelization.
How can it be enabled?
Direct3D11
Use the NVIDIA NvAPI to create an ID3D11RasterizerState, the interface for this is shown below:
Direct3D11.3 & Direct3D12
These future Direct3D API’s will include full support for this feature, as detailed on slide 24 and 25 of this presentation: http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-20-72/8463.Direct3D-12-_2D00_-New-Rendering-Features.pptx
OpenGL
Use the GL_NV_conservative_raster extension.
NVIDIA also has an OpenGL GameWorks SDK sample demonstrating how to set up Conservative Rasterization.
Is it possible to achieve Conservative Raster without HW support?
Yes, it is indeed possible to do this, and there is a very good article describing it here.
However both approaches add performance overhead, and as such usage of conservative rasterization in real time graphics has been pretty limited so far.
So what can I do with it?
There are no doubt many applications for the conservative raster, but in this article I’d like to highlight a couple of interesting usage cases:
NEW INFO FROM HERE ON OUT
Turns out Conservative Raster can be used with 2nd gen maxwell even with Direct3D11 via nvapi=>hw support even without directx 12.
https://developer.nvidia.com/content/dont-be-conservative-conservative-rasterization
What is it?
Conservative raster is a cool new feature that came along with NVIDIA’s new Maxwell architecture, which means it is accessible today on GTX980/GTX970 boards. It allows rasterization to generate fragments for every pixel touched by a primitive. This post shows how to enable the feature, and highlights a couple of example use cases: ray traced shadows and voxelization.
How can it be enabled?
Direct3D11
Use the NVIDIA NvAPI to create an ID3D11RasterizerState, the interface for this is shown below:
NvAPI_D3D11_RASTERIZER_DESC_EX NVAPI_RS_DESC;
NVAPI_RS_DESC.ConservativeRasterEnable = TRUE; // Enable conservative raster
NvAPI_D3D11_CreateRasterizerState(pD3D11Device,(const NvAPI_D3D11_RASTERIZER_DESC_EX*)&NVAPI_RS_DESC,&m_pConservativeRaster);
NVAPI_RS_DESC.ConservativeRasterEnable = TRUE; // Enable conservative raster
NvAPI_D3D11_CreateRasterizerState(pD3D11Device,(const NvAPI_D3D11_RASTERIZER_DESC_EX*)&NVAPI_RS_DESC,&m_pConservativeRaster);
Direct3D11.3 & Direct3D12
These future Direct3D API’s will include full support for this feature, as detailed on slide 24 and 25 of this presentation: http://blogs.msdn.com/cfs-file.ashx/__key/communityserver-blogs-components-weblogfiles/00-00-01-20-72/8463.Direct3D-12-_2D00_-New-Rendering-Features.pptx
OpenGL
Use the GL_NV_conservative_raster extension.
NVIDIA also has an OpenGL GameWorks SDK sample demonstrating how to set up Conservative Rasterization.
Is it possible to achieve Conservative Raster without HW support?
Yes, it is indeed possible to do this, and there is a very good article describing it here.
However both approaches add performance overhead, and as such usage of conservative rasterization in real time graphics has been pretty limited so far.
So what can I do with it?
There are no doubt many applications for the conservative raster, but in this article I’d like to highlight a couple of interesting usage cases:
NEW INFO FROM HERE ON OUT
Ray Traced Shadows
An interesting approach to ray tracing that avoids the use of bounding volume hierarchies, is to store primitives in a regular grid data structure as seen from the light’s point of view. Essentially you can think of this like a shadow map, but instead of storing depth, you store an array of triangles, as depicted in figure 7 below. Of course it is important to note that this kind of data structure would not scale to cater for a highly complex game scene, but instead would be more appropriate for a discrete dynamic object, such as the main game character.
Conservative rasterization is definitely needed in this case, to ensure that every triangle that touches a primitive map texel is stored. Without conservative raster enabled triangles will be missing from the map, and you’ll wind up with holes in the shadow. To perform the ray tracing, just compute primitive map lookups in a similar way as you would for shadow mapping, but instead perform ray-triangle intersection tests to determine if a screen pixel is occluded. The resulting quality of shadow, as compared to regular shadow mapping is very high. Figures 8 to 10 compare regular shadow mapping with the ray traced result, and show the effect of switching conservative raster on:
Figure 8: Regular Shadow Map
Figure 9: Ray Traced - Conservative Raster OFF
Figure 10: Ray Traced - Conservative Raster ON
An interesting approach to ray tracing that avoids the use of bounding volume hierarchies, is to store primitives in a regular grid data structure as seen from the light’s point of view. Essentially you can think of this like a shadow map, but instead of storing depth, you store an array of triangles, as depicted in figure 7 below. Of course it is important to note that this kind of data structure would not scale to cater for a highly complex game scene, but instead would be more appropriate for a discrete dynamic object, such as the main game character.
Conservative rasterization is definitely needed in this case, to ensure that every triangle that touches a primitive map texel is stored. Without conservative raster enabled triangles will be missing from the map, and you’ll wind up with holes in the shadow. To perform the ray tracing, just compute primitive map lookups in a similar way as you would for shadow mapping, but instead perform ray-triangle intersection tests to determine if a screen pixel is occluded. The resulting quality of shadow, as compared to regular shadow mapping is very high. Figures 8 to 10 compare regular shadow mapping with the ray traced result, and show the effect of switching conservative raster on:
Figure 8: Regular Shadow Map
Figure 9: Ray Traced - Conservative Raster OFF
Figure 10: Ray Traced - Conservative Raster ONVoxel Rendering
This is the process of converting a triangular mesh into a voxel representation, and can be thought of as a way of storing a lower level of detail for a scene, as highlighted by the photograph below:
Voxelization has many potential usage scenarios, but an obvious one is Global Illumination (GI). GI is the process of computing the effect of light as it bounces around a scene, the result of which is far more life-like lighting than traditional direct lighting solutions, as demonstrated by the comparison shots below:
Figure 12: Tradition Direct Lighting
Figure 13: Global Illumination
Conservative rasterization comes into play during the voxelization process, to ensure that small triangles are not dropped out of voxel information. Voxelization tends to be performed at a lower resolution than the full scene for performance reasons, which only increases the need for conservative raster to be enabled.
This is the process of converting a triangular mesh into a voxel representation, and can be thought of as a way of storing a lower level of detail for a scene, as highlighted by the photograph below:
Voxelization has many potential usage scenarios, but an obvious one is Global Illumination (GI). GI is the process of computing the effect of light as it bounces around a scene, the result of which is far more life-like lighting than traditional direct lighting solutions, as demonstrated by the comparison shots below:
Figure 12: Tradition Direct Lighting
Figure 13: Global Illumination
Conservative rasterization comes into play during the voxelization process, to ensure that small triangles are not dropped out of voxel information. Voxelization tends to be performed at a lower resolution than the full scene for performance reasons, which only increases the need for conservative raster to be enabled.
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Senior Member
Posts: 572
Joined: 2010-12-16
So pumped for DX12, since DX12 will use more threads/cores and be more efficient at evening the load across them. All DX before then were heavily single threaded which caused AMDs main weakness to shine more. DX12 should help eliminate that and Windows 10 hopefully as on OS is more core friendly as well.